New Adventures In Backpacking

When I was in Guatemala back in 2008 I sat next to a fairly eccentric Dutch guy on yet another long windy bus journey. Inevitably we got talking about travel as you simply have to when you meet a stranger travelling. Turns out he had been a tour guide a few years previous and had really racked up the countries at the age of 36. He told me that it was his aim to have visited fifty countries by the time he was forty. This seemed to me an excellent ambition so I scribbled down all the countries I had been to in the past few years at the then age twenty six and decided that it should be my aim to get to thirty countries by the time I am thirty.

It seems an odd ambition but it has really driven me to continue to go new places instead of visiting my old favourites. I shared this ambition with a wonderful friend of mine at the time who was sitting on the exact same amount of countries at a slightly more advanced age and we have been competing to get to thirty ever since. I am delighted that I will be reaching my landmark 30th country at the time of publishing this blog a whole 4 days quicker than her.

The first foreign country I ever visited was Spain aged eight; I doubt there is a person alive who was born in the UK in the 80’s who wasn’t taken to Spain on a package holiday by their parents. In times before Ryanair and Easyjet Spain was the destination of choice to most working class people in an age when people used to walk into travel agents and book holidays. A bizarre thought now I am sure you will agree.

The destination was Playa Den Bosa in Ibiza in 1990. I still remember my first ever flight, the hotel, the kids club, riding the mechanical bull in a bar on the beach, Italia 90 every day. My Dad taking me to see Germany celebrating winning the World Cup and then a squad of English people rocking up and throwing bottles at them. Now that I think about it I remember that holiday more than some of the boozy holidays I had in Spain when I was in my late teens. Given that they were in Magaluf and Benidorm it’s probably not a bad thing. I spent a lot of holidays in Spain up until I was about twenty two. If the Canaries and Baleric Islands were each countries in their own right, I’d be closer to forty countries by now.

China in 2004 was my first real travel experience. A holiday that came out of nowhere that which lit the torch paper. This was pre Olympics Beijing, before the big clear up. I saw very few tourists out and about and any time I was at a tourist attraction like the Forbidden Palace I was mobbed by Chinese tourists from the countryside to pose for photo’s with them. They probably had not ever seen a European man with peroxide blonde hair and loud dress sense or a tall female with Sideshow Bob style red hair! I do remember being at the Great Wall of China and taking some time to myself and being mystified as to how a guy from a council estate in Scotland whose previous holidays had been trips to Benidorm found himself to be standing on one of the world’s greatest landmarks in China of all places. For the first time ever I realised if I wanted it bad enough, I could do what ever I wanted to. Sadly this trip took place literally a few months before I got a digital camera and all my photo’s were destroyed in a flood. I would give anything to have those photo’s back.

In 2005 I sat at a friends leaving party before she went over to Australia for a year on a working holiday visa. I wasn’t even aware that you could do such a thing so easily. If she could do it, so could I, so a couple of days later I handed my notice in at work and booked a flight to Australia. and five years on, here I am at country number thirty.

Here is the run down of where I have been. I should point out that stop overs in airports and transits straight through countries don’t count

Spain
Portugal
Greece
France
Ireland
Finland
Norway
China
Belgium
Germany
Singapore
Australia
USA
New Zealand
Thailand
Laos
Malaysia
Sweden
Trinidad and Tobago
Venezuela
Colombia
Guatemala
Mexico
Holland
Denmark
India
Nepal
Cambodia
Vietnam
Burma

As you can see I have barely touched central and eastern Europe nor been to Africa.

Forty before forty should be a walk in the park!

This blog written by me first appeared on RunawayJane a few weeks ago. Today is my last day in New Zealand so I thought it was only fair that it joined the rest of my blogs about New Zealand.

Fair well New Zealand. It’s been fun.

For me one of the best things about travelling after an extended period time, is to stop off in a city and work a little, raise your funds for your next trip. This gives you the opportunity to get a real feel for a city, the people, and the way of life. I have been fortunate enough to live and work in Melbourne, Sydney, London, and most recently Wellington, New Zealand, for the past 6 months.

A lot of my opinions are shared not just by backpackers however, but my friends and co-workers who have left Britain and Ireland to come live here. This is my observations of what people should expect when they come here to live. So before I get labelled a whinging pomp. Here are things I will really miss about living in New Zealand.

Coffee

Although I had heard that Wellington, New Zealand had a bit of a coffee culture, little did I know how seriously Kiwi’s take their coffee. Just about everywhere you go; the coffee shops, the cafes, the bakeries, the restaurants all seem to do a pretty amazing job with coffee. There are also quite a few espresso stands, espresso carts and trailers and since just about every café here serves hand pulled espresso drinks, I would venture to say that Wellington probably has way more espresso serving places per capita than anywhere else in the world… but this is just my own unscientific observation. At Wellington airport, I counted more than six coffee shops within my view of the departure lounge. To put it into perspective, the coffee that I order at the local megaplex cinema chain served to you by the same guy that serves you popcorn and watered down soft drinks is miles better than anything I have tasted in the chain coffee places that pollute the UK high streets. Also, if you are in a pub and you just asked for a coffee they won’t stare at you like you have two heads.

If you are in Wellington and love your coffee, checkout Aro street coffee house, Enigma, Ernesto’s, Café Italiano and Havana Coffee.

My mornings will never be the same again!

Good Food / Eating out

Eating out in New Zealand is very affordable. Whilst the sort of people who like getting dressed up and talking about the ambience or the décor of a restaurant instead of the actual food will be very disappointed, the food is very vey good. There is a big café shop culture here and they heavily out number actual restaurants, but the food all tends to be to the same high standard. It is also possible to eat a pub meal that would put most pub’s in the UK to shame. There are no microwave jockey’s here. There is no dress code, fancy décor and posh glasses, just good food that is affordable to almost everyone, with no stigma about taking your kids out. Whilst the overriding amount of takeaway food is Asian, there is a large variety of foreign influences as well as the famous Kiwi Fish’n’Chips, all of which tends to be cheaper that actually going to the supermarket and buying the food yourself. I found whilst I was staying in a hostel in Wellington that it was much cheaper and more convenient to buy a $10 (4gbp) curry from the local Malaysian place than it was to go to the supermarket and cook it myself.

Anyone who knows me will know how much I love my sushi, but I could never dream of eating it every day in Europe due to the cost. Well here in Wellington it is possible for me to spend $12-15 dollars (5 GBP) and have a very Wasabi happy stomach every lunch time. I haven’t even got enough space to go on about the wine and cheese here too! I am not a massive meat eater mainly because I am very sceptical of what I am actually eating when it comes to meat. I was born in the 80’s in the UK and there is not a country in the western world that would accept my blood in fear of me giving them the human form of mad cow disease. Here in New Zealand whilst you are outside the city you will see large quantities of healthy looking livestock in fresh green fields with acres of spaces to graze as they like. They don’t have to make a big deal of organic food at the supermarket here. There isn’t an alternative, and in turn I have tasted some of the finest meat and eggs I could ever wish for at a relatively low price.

Kiwi slang.

While the accent is sometimes a mystery to me (they do sort of chew on their vowels), I found Kiwi slang, somewhere between Aussie bushman and California surferdude, to be most amusing. It’s not every day you hear a fiftysomething, otherwise dowdy woman say “choice!” or “bonus!” to express pleasure or approval. At first I found it hilarious but as time went by I found it very endearing. I will never pronounce Fuish’n;Chuips any other way!

Scenery / Landscape

I don’t need to tell anyone how beautiful New Zealand is. I will really miss the variety of landscape they have here from the green, lush rolling hills of the North Island, to the beautiful beaches and stunning mountains of the South. I will miss the feeling of space, in the South Island especially. It is so easy to get out into the wilderness and feel like you’re the first person to tread there since… Gandalf. And to still make it back to town for Eggs Benidict and a flat white. Even in the capital city Wellington, you are no more than a twenty minute cycle from the Red Rock’s, which feels like you are on the moon or the coast lines of Miramar, which on a good day could be confused with the tropics.

Work/Life Balance

I recently read an article reporting surveys that show people living in New Zealand find that they have more free time to spend as they wish than they have ever had before. Working hours are shorter, and there is more to do outdoors and within the community outside of work, so this makes for a very good work/life balance. The people I work with always seem to be doing something or going somewhere at the weekends. The amount of people visibly running and cycling is noticeable compared to the UK, and from my own experiences work places actively encourage better work/life balances by subsidizing sport clubs and team events.

The rat race doesn’t exist here. Even Wellington CBD, the capital cities leading business district, lacks hustle and bustle. It’s very affordable to live in or around the city centre so people can walk or cycle to work. I don’t know anyone at works who’s commute is longer than 30 minutes. If you are commuting it tends to be from one of the coastal suburbs where you can view the magnificent coastal scenery all the way into the city.

The Northern line at 08:15 on a Monday morning this is not.

So there you go, all the things I will miss about New Zealand…

Tags: Coffee New Zealand, Eating out New Zealand, Things I will miss about New Zealand

Up next was Mount Cook. A mere two hours drive from Lake Tepako, The weather which had been beautiful the day previous had taken a turn for the worst and much more like the winter weather we should be having this time of the year. It made for an interesting contrast in scenery from the day previous but just as impressive in it’s own way as we hugged the road that runs along side Lake Pukaki.

Mount Cook is the highest Mountain in New Zealand peaking 3.75 km metres high. At the base of the mountain range is the Aokaki Mount Cook Alpine Village which hosts a range of accommodation from the ultra flash to the YHA backpackers which of course I stayed at. I am normally a tad hesitant to stay at YHA hostel as they tend to be full of boring people and slightly odd older couples but I really enjoyed my stay here and got to witness one of the strangest things I have ever seen. Sitting across from a Japanese girl minding my own business she gets’s off the couch. Get’s down on all 4’s and promptly starts drinking out of the dog water bowl. She then gets back on the couch like it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

My room had the best view from any hostel room I have ever stayed in. Even a morning grump like me got up early to check this view out. Check this out.

The hostel also had it’s own sauna which was not to bad although not exactly as hot as I would like, this was not helped by people whom would stop outside the sauna, stand there for a minute then open the door to look in letting all the heat escape whilst getting the fright of their lives that it was a sauna with naked sweaty people in it which would promptly follow with an embarrassed apology. What did they expect in a sauna? A cocktails bar? Muppets.

All around Mount Cook there are several walks that you can take, from short bush walks to adventurous walks in and around the Hooker Valley area. I opted to take the short trek out to the Tasman Glacier Lakes.

When I did my trek in Nepal at the beginning of this trip 8 months ago I wrote that if I was ever lucky enough to see such magnificent scenery ever again would be a very happy man. Well, it seems I have been that lucky again because the scenery in Mount Cook is beyond breath-taking and way beyond my limited writing skills to describe so I shall stick to the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words.

But the fun did not stop there. One hundred kilometres south of Mount Cook is the small town of Omarama. Having enjoyed my thermal spa experience in Kale Tekapo so much I decided to indulge further in the world of hot spas. I guess this is the point of the trip where I switch from backpacker to flashpacker. What was different from the previous experience was we had our private barrel tub which was heated by a log fire below us. Whilst we were stewing away in our own little barrel we could gaze at the snow laden mountain tops reflecting in the lake in front of us. We could marvel at the beauty of the sunset on Mount Cook and then admire the many stars in the sky as the night drew close. This was truly extravagant living. A day that will live long in my memory.

After two hours of boiling ourselves clean of Windy Wellington, all the stresses and strains that have been on my mind of late after making a few life altering decisions seemed a long way.

I’ve only been on the South Island a few days but I am already falling in love with it. Can’t wait for the next stop and can only imagine the fun that I will have.

Tags: Backpacking New Zealand, Mount Cook, Mount Cook YHA, Omarama, Omarama Hot tubs, Tasman Glacier Lakes

This blog first appeared on travelwithamate.com who kindly hosted my guest posting. Do check out thier excellent website if you get a chance. It was written after a few months of carrying far to much stuff and even worse constantly losing things! I recently read a friend was sending 15 boxes to her destination before heading off so it sparked something in my brain.

Recently in Bangkok I decided to shed all my excess baggage. For two months in India and Nepal I had been carrying around a ridiculously heavy backpack and a day pack. I decided to ditch the day pack and got rid of all the unessential items in my backpack.

I had packed things that were completely useless to me when backpacking but maybe could use when I eventually stopped travelling and to my great expense had to send them via DHL to a family members address in New Zealand. Not only did this bite heavily into my travel funds but also quite a lot of time was spent dealing with frustrating Thai bureaucracy!

Below is a list of things that I should not have taken with me and some other things that I have learned not to travel with.

Mosquito nets

Should have been fazed-out in the early 20th century, In one hundred Indian hotel rooms, I rarely found anything to hook the thing on to, and when I did, I found that it obstructed the much-needed cool breeze from the ceiling fan, creating an uncomfortable pocket of warm air. I have visited almost all of the S.E Asia countries now, and have never encountered mosquitoes in such numbers that they would interrupt my sleep (unlike my experiences in South America) and as for malaria prevention – there are better ways! Any area where Mosquitoes maybe a problem the nets will be provided.

Shampoo and Conditioner

Invest in sun cream but don’t bring large or even medium sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Local products will do just fine and can be purchased in neat travel sized sachets from most chemists.

Hair Dryers and Straighteners

Yes believe it or not people do take these with them. Me included one trip!. Most sockets do not offer enough power to make them work to there full capacity. Not only do they take up valuable space but the heat in Asia makes them virtually pointless.

Sheets/Pillows

A small minority of hotels/backpackers lack sheets and just provide mattress coverings. during most of the year, it is usually so hot that sheets are unnecessary anyway. Whilst in the hills and mountains, you don’t need sheets you need a sleeping bag which can be purchased cheaply then disposed or tied onto the outside of your pack. Whilst travel pillows do help you endure the epic night bus journeys they take up a massive amount of space and tourist bus companies tend to provide a pillow and a sheet.

Swiss Army Knifes

I had one for years and took it on every trip. I never once used it. I am a backpacker not an outdoors man. Unless you’re going camping in the wilderness leave it at home. Wine is rare is S.E Asia and mainly served in bars so you won’t even need it for that and eventually you will forget that you have it in your bag and have it confiscated at the airport like I did.

Jeans

Controversial choice amongst some people but they take up valuable space, are useless if you get wet and it tends to be hot to wear them almost all times of the year. It’s also worth noting that it is almost impossible to keep your clothes looking good when they are washed in rivers and squashed into your backpack for months on end and expensive items of clothing should be left at home. I would also advise unless you own a small cheap waterproof jacket that can be stuffed into your backpack not to bring a jacket either. You will never/rarely need one.

Expensive clothes

No matter how much they cost, or how much you liked them before your trip after six months of rolling them into a ball, squashing them in the backpack and being washed in hostel washing machines you will want to burn every item of clothing you own after travelling. Leave the good stuff at home. You will also if your anything like me lose them!

Books

Books take up a large amount of space, controversially I wouldn’t even bother carrying a Lonely Planet guide. South East Asia is full of travellers who can give first hand advice and it is hardly off the beaten track. Books can be purchased much cheaper on the street and most book places offer a book exchange meaning you don’t have to carry around unwanted books.

Large amounts of medical supplies

One for the hypochondriacs, compact, basic first aid kit is essential to bring with you, such as plasters, a small tube of anti-septic cream and so on. But don’t go overboard. I’ve had the same emergency kit with me for five years and it still remains un-open.

Guitars
Apart from the major inconvenience in carrying one you fit every backpacker stereotype in world. If you’re desperate to keep playing you will find a hostel or bar with one lying around or find at the one stereotypical American jock douchebag with a guitar that I always seem to meet who is trying to impress girls with Bob Marley, Jack Johnston songs.

Tags: What not to take backpacking, What to take backpacking

One of the things I get asked constantly when I talk to people about my travels is ‘how do I afford it?’

I have come across a lot of people who just presume that I have a massive salary and can afford to gallivant around the world at any time of my choosing.I can assure you nothing could be further from the truth. I just enjoy my travels so much so that I am willing to make some big sacrifices to ensure they continue. In fact, I seem to have spent the last five years constantly saving for travelling or in a travelling state. If I’m not going travelling then I’m saving hard to go travelling, and I really mean I save hard!Here are some of the ways I save money.

Rent – The single biggest dent in most people’s pay cheque is their rent/mortgage. I have always kept my leases on any flat very short term. When I moved back from South America last year I stayed in a very nice flat. Once I knew that I would be making this trip, I had the flexibility to move out at short notice to a much cheaper area (and more to the point, my flatmates were weirdoes). I was instantly saving £200 a month without making any real effort. If you live in a city where there are lots of tourists and backpackers, try to get a shared flat with other travellers. Not only are you saving money on rent but you are surrounded with like-minded people in a similar position to you. You cook for each other, go drinking in all the cheap places with each other and have a constant reminder of what you are doing and why.

A lot of people move back in with their parents to save money. I did the first time I went travelling. If your parents live in a good location then I would recommend this as the easiest way to save the most money. However, in my situation I would have saved maybe £100 extra a month if I’d moved back to suburbia (take into account train costs and time spent travelling as well), but would that extra [£500] [£100?] at the end of each month have been worth all the commuting, loss of privacy, independence and all round negative impact on my mental state of mind? I don’t think so!

Portion your salary – Have a portion of your salary automatically deposited into a savings account on pay day, and then don’t touch it. That’s it! You’ll be surprised at how little you’ll miss the money you’re setting aside. If you don’t have it, you don’t miss it. In fact when I do think about it, I wonder what on earth I was doing with it before I started saving.

Budget weekly – Budgeting is hard, but needs to be done. Break your monthly salary, minus rent, bills and savings, into weekly amounts and stick by it. Before travelling I would get paid, spend like a mad man, then look at my bank balance three weeks later and realise I’d spent far too much. I then spent the rest of the month sitting in front of the computer eating noodles. The backpacker side of me kind of enjoys seeing how little money I can spend in one week. I’m Scottish as well, so being really tight just comes naturally.

Don’t have contracts – Do not sign up for any fixed term contracts, like on your mobile phone or for the gym. If you want to take off at short notice you will have to pay the remainder of the contract off, which can be very expensive, or otherwise watch your hard earned savings decrease as you’re paying a monthly direct debit for a service you no longer use. Stick to pay-as-you-go phones as you can ditch them the minute you leave. Also, it means you know how much money you are spending.

Don’t window shop – Don’t put yourself in a position to be tempted to spend unnecessary money. You don’t miss what you don’t have, or in this case think you can have. You don’t need a new Iphone, clothes, or shoes to go travelling, no matter how necessary they seem to your life now. I’m predicting the success I have had in this area will severely hamper Topshop’s half yearly report for the end of 2010.

Keep fit – A personal favourite which I know won’t be to everyone’s tastes. Keeping fit is a super way of saving money. It’s good for you, costs nothing, and is an enjoyable way of wasting days or evenings when you would normally be saving money. Whilst I have had to stay in on numerous Friday nights of late, they don’t feel such a waste if I have done something productive.

Learn to cook – I love eating out when I’m not travelling or saving to travel. However, it became quite apparent a few months ago that spending £50 a pop at my favourite sushi bar had to become a thing of the past. Over the years my cooking skills have become better and better. Now I actually really enjoy cooking, be it for myself or a group of my flatmates. You could cut back by buying cheap supermarket microwave meals but do you really want to spend six months eating pasta and noodles? When you do cook, cook in bulk be it for your flat mates who will then feel obliged to cook you a meal, or put it in a container and freeze it for another day. This will also pay dividends when you are travelling and having to cook in hostels, which is where I learnt to cook.

Lunches – Once I had started budgeting at the start of every pay month I started to monitor where my finances were going and noticed I was spending £5-6 a day on lunches. Over the space of a month that really adds up. To put this into context that sum can be your daily budget for food, accommodation and most forms of legal entertainment in South East Asia. Take your own lunches to work, especially if you can tie it in with cooking from the night before. It does feel a little naff taking a lunch box to work, but it will save you a lot of money, and I’m very uncool.

Stay focused – All this saving can get you down when all your friends are out partying and you’re stuck in all the time. It’s easy to let the savings slip. Keep reminding yourself why you’re doing this and remember that when you’re travelling it will all be worth it. Do a little something in preparation for your trip each week no matter how far away it is. I have pictures from my travels plastered all over my walls, I have a map of the world above my bed, and I have an REM tea tray with a map of the world on it sitting on my desk at work so I have constant reminders about what I am doing and why.

Tags: how to save money for backpacking, How to save money for your trip

In a previous blog I touched upon the fact that I am surrounded by people much younger than me. In turn, this also means I have a lot more backpacking experience than most of my friends. Such is the nature of NZ that the majority of the travellers I meet are on their first ever trip. There is a backpackers code that I hate and that is that every conversation you have with any new person must start along the lines with any of these dreaded questions:

How long are you travelling for? Where have you been? Where are you going next?

When I tell them the answers to those awful questions, they are usually quite impressed. To most people I have travelled a lot and I am very lucky to have been able to have done so much travelling in the last few years, but people only really see one side of things. My life style is certainly not all sex, travel and rock n roll. Travel is the best thing currently in my life, meeting new people, experiencing new cultures are all the plus points but sometimes it can be a tough and quite lonely existence. I have spent the last five years in a constant cycle. Saving up to travel, travelling followed by paying off travel. It presents a number of problems that wear me down from time to time be it on a four month trip or a year or two overseas.

I recently had a situation when it was time to say goodbye to someone whom I spent quite a bit of time with for a few weeks. When it was time for them to leave. I mentioned that I would really miss their company they told me ‘I must do this all the time’, and she was right I do. However, sometimes I am less numb to it than others and it’s hard to show the individual person that they are more to me than just another backpacker to spend a day or two with and it’s quite sad when that’s all they think they were. The best thing about travelling is the variety of people I meet that I would never have been exposed to if I had never left the UK; but despite all your best intentions as well as emails and Facebook you know you will probably never see them again. When I am finished travelling I wonder who I will be left with in the friends department.

All that said, not every backpacker you meet is your cup of tea, in fact some of the biggest twats I have ever met have been backpackers!

It’s near impossible to remain friends with people back home. I’m never there and people move on, and even when I am there I’m always saving to leave again and cannot really commit to anything. I could write a novel on long distance relationships with girls I’ve met on my travels. None of which, so far, have a happy ending. I must admit I have no idea where home will be when I finally finish up travelling and will inevitably have to start from scratch where ever that place maybe.

The same can be said with possessions of which I have nothing other than my backpack. I have seen so much amazing art work and décor that I would love to have in a house one day that I have had to pass by because there is simply no point. At the end of all this I will have nothing to show for my travels other than the memories, my photos and this excellent blog.

Even the actual travel can drive you insane at times. I have now lived out of my backpack without a place to call home for six months. After constantly rolling all my clothes and squashing them into a backpack I now want to burn ever item of clothing I own.

Also forget about having any privacy or peace and quiet. I am sure every traveller has at some point had a breaking point after seeing yet another waterfall, temple or castle. It all looks the same after a while. I didn’t go to Chichan Itza the famous Myan ruin in Mexico upon which most people base an entire trip around because I was simply templed out.

Whilst my lifestyle is fun and a wonderful experience that I wouldn’t have missed for the world, the last thing this is, is easy.

Today I celebrate my 28th birthday. Not too old in the grand old scheme of things I am sure you would agree. I think I have achieved a lot in terms of travel in this short spell on this planet so far and I am lucky enough to get better looking and wiser, and indeed more deluded each year. However, in terms of being a backpacker in New Zealand I feel like I will be registering for a free bus pass sometime soon. Thus begging the question. Am I starting to get too old for this?

For me, age always has been and hopefully always will be a number. It’s more about how you live your life rather than the amount of candles on your cake. Some of the best people I have met on my travels have been well above forty plus, the two people who inspired me to write about my travels are both in their late thirties. It first came to my attention that NZ was going to be a bit of a wake-up call when a friend whom I met in Cambodia, who had just turned 30, warned me that I should be aware that I will never feel so old as when I stay in a hostel in NZ. I scoffed at such a notion but she is correct. Backpacking in New Zealand makes me feel old.

I have now spent three months here, the majority of it spent staying at the Worldwide Backpackers in Wellington. I had a wonderful time and met many fantastic people but the entire time I was there, I was the oldest person in the hostel at twenty seven. It seems that the hostels in NZ are fully of people who are nineteen and twenty. I shared a room with a girl who was nine years younger than me. Shared beers with a guy who was fourteen the first time I went travelling and had dinner every night with people the exact same age as my youngest sister. The idea of being at home and hanging out with people my youngest sister’s age feels ever so slightly weird. Don’t imagine my sister would be too pleased about it either!

While they do make me feel old. I am full of admiration for people so young who go off travelling to the other side of the world. Especially those who have English as their second language. In fact it makes me rather embarrassed as I could barely tie my shoe-laces when I was a 19 year old. It has also been nice to take on the role of hostel big brother passing on my years of wisdom to those at the start of their travels but it also serves as a reminder of how naive I was when I started my travels and demonstrates how far I have come in the past five years. I look back at some of the mistakes I made in Australia and cringe. Travel certainly makes you grow up fast.

So I have found myself asking is it me? Have I become too old to be hanging around backpacker hostels? Should I read this as a sign that it’s time to move on and consider the world of flashpacking? I have met many people who have lived in hostels because it suited them at the time but would never go back. Should I have moved on to? It did get me thinking about where have all the twenty something’s gone?

This is my forth major trip in five years. My first trip to Australia for a year was taken as a fresh faced twenty three year old in 2006. In that year I found myself just below the average age of twenty five / twenty six, being the majority of people I met. Whilst I did meet a few really young people it was not uncommon to stay in a hostel with quite a lot of people around the age I am now.

The reduction of people at my age travelling I presume is a direct result of the global financial down turn. People now seem reluctant to take a gamble on a year out. People will no longer take their last opportunity before turning 30 and having the working holiday visa option slam shut on them. Companies can no longer afford to offer staff members a gap year. The surplus cash that is meant to be swirling around twenty something’s pockets seem to be no longer here.

Of course there is also the basic reality that everyone grows up and settles down at some point. There will always be the people you know from home who you know will settle early in life but you don’t think it will happen to your fellow travellers, the people you partied with till the sun comes up on a beach, shared a bucket of booze with in Bangkok, the people who swore they would travel till they drop, sadly stop being travellers and fade into the real world. The majority of my Facebook friends are people I have met on the road and my news page seems to be updated with wedding plans and people uploading pictures of their kids. Maybe one day it might even happen to me

Pehaps there could be a more simple explanation. New Zealand just appeals to the younger and adventurous crowd. It markets itself, quite rightly very well as the adventure capital of the world whereas Australia is all about sun and fun and the working holiday visa crowd over in Australia are more similar to a club 18-30 holiday than the sorts that want to jump out of a plane or climb a mountain. It’s probably no coincidence the large amounts of binge drinking British and Irish backpackers who populate the Australian backpacker scene are largely missing and replaced by a heavy amount of young adventurous Germans with a healthy mix of the new emerging Eastern European countries.

Whilst they may make me feel very old, the average New Zealand backpacker crowd is a much friendlier, fun and interesting crowd to mix with than there Australian counterparts.

Perhaps getting old isn’t so bad after all but it has still left me wondering if I am getting too old for this?

Tags: Backpacking New Zealand, Too old for backpacking

To say Singapore is a boring place is a massive understatement. It’s full of glass and steel but everything feels plastic. I’ve never been to Vegas but I am guessing this is how it would feel to me. Two days in Singapore once is enough for any tourist. It’s bland, sterile and it lacks any sort of vibe or soul. I could feel my wunderlust been sucked from under me as I wandered the streets, passing several McDonalds and dodging kids with their Gucci bags and Man United shirts. Of course all cities should be litter free and safe but at times it felt like if I had sneezed, I would spend the night in a cell.

My encounters with the locals gave me the impression that they were just obsessed with wealth and possessions; a mix of boring Westerners smug in their happy safe sterile world and locals who seem to have forgotten how to have fun. I did my usual bar hopping which proved not only expensive but lacked the usual interaction with interesting locals. All people were interested in was ‘What did I do?’. I swear one guy’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when I told him I had left a pretty good job for no reason other than to travel. Another local was not that interested in what it was like for me living in London, but was interested to hear how much I was earning at the time. On a Sunday afternoon I found myself having lunch by myself but positioned myself close to a group of 8 or so people so I could listen to their chat and all they ever discussed was the future of telemarketing and the merits of giving an 8 year old a computer. All I wanted was to just get a tid bit of gossip about the night before, or news of an up and coming holiday or an insight into the twenty something lifestyle of a Singaporean, anything but business chat on a Sunday afternoon!

Singabore is the childish name of my blog. ‘Death of a Budget’ was another suggestion. It is extremely expensive there, 15gbp a night at a hostel, 8gbp a pint of beer, 12 GBP for a malt whiskey! The best thing to do is simply resign yourself to the fact that you’re going to overspend and just accept it. Stop comparing everything to India or Thailand prices, accept it and move on. It was however nice to visit Topshop again!

As much as it pains me I don’t want to write entirely negative stuff about Singapore. The local underground MRT is very good and about the only thing there that is value for money, The boat trip down Clark Quay is quite pleasant too and provides good picture opportunities. China Town has its merits and a trip to the 4th floor of the shopping mall there can prove quite interesting if you didn’t already know what goes on up there. It rhymes with floor. The man made beach can also be a nice little break from the sterile streets. There is apparently a very good night safari too if that’s your sort of thing. Also I went to a very nice Indian in China Town called Annalakshni. They specialise in vegetarian buffets and you pay however much you feel like, which as a backpacker should never be ignored. At the time due to a lack of change (honest) I didn’t leave as much as I should have so I repaying them with a plug on my website.

The airport here is also excellent, maybe my favourite airport, free internet, massages, a bowling alley and a cinema. I actually set off five hours before my flight just to spend some time there. Though it says all you need to know about Singapore that the best thing about it is leaving!

So it’s safe to say I won’t be back in Singapore again any time soon, unless Tiger Airways have another amazing sale like the one that got me from HCMC to Australia for less than two hundred pounds!

Tags: Backpacking Singapore

Somewhere in between xmas and New Year and my marathon blogging session from the Poon Hill trek, my website had its 100,000th hit. Not too bad as I only started the website three months ago. Whilst the website is only in its infancy and will hopefully evolve into greater things in the near future, I’d like to thank everyone for their support, especially those I have never met but are just interested in travel adventures.

One of the more interesting things about hosting your own website is the stats and figures that are provided to you by your host, such as who’s looking at your website to the origin of country. It was from this info that I know that hit 100,000 was from someone living in Croydon. I certainly don’t know anyone from Croydon so if it was you, drop me a line and I’ll send you a postcard.

One of the more interesting services that my host provides is a list of the all the keywords that have been typed into to Google, which has then directed someone to your site. Now I would love to think my biggest draw would be travel, backpacking or even an individual location that I have blogged on. Sadly it seems my biggest keyword hit is Japanese Girls in Delhi. In a blog from Delhi I reported that there were a couple of Japanese girls in my hotel who never left the reception and from that I have had more than two thousand individual hits from people looking for Japanese girls in Delhi. So it seems my biggest appeal to Google are sex tourists. Not exactly what I set out for.

If I have learnt one thing so far as a blogger, it is that you do not piss off alternative medicine fans. The blog on my one day Reiki Master session is by far and away the most looked at item on my website. I can only presume it was copy and pasted on many Reiki message boards and in turn outraged Reiki fans seemed to descend on my website to send me hate mail by the bucket load. I found this quite amusing at first, but the other day I alone had 74 spam emails sent to me by Reiki people. I will soon print a positive article of ear candling in a hope you win back the alternative medicine crowd.

One of the features I like is seeing what countries my website is most popular in.

Here is my current top 10.

1. United States
2. Great Britain
3. Russia
4. Taiwan
5. Sweden
6. Australia
7. Germany
8. China
9. Singapore
10. Holland

Big in Taiwan! Yay.

Thanks to everyone for checking out my site. Hopefully the next three months will prove as fun to write about as the last ones.

Click on the below to see me showing the locals of Pushkar some funky white boy moves. For those who do not know me. I’m the un hip white guy with the hat on with bad rhythm bobbing up and down in the middle.

Dancing in the streets of Pushkar